


This Is

by PunkHazard



Category: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a nod, this is a shake, a twitch, a flex; the tandem of bone and ligament and muscle fibers exerting force on the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】This Is/这是](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11290557) by [Alynes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alynes/pseuds/Alynes)



Nothing is brighter than the sun. Nothing more calming, comforting than this pool of water, pulsing and teeming with life. 

Foo Fighters extends in all directions. 

Fuzzy roots, packed mud and pebbles stop your progress at the edge of your domain, but instead of washing ashore, drying and dying and fading back to the earth, you gather along the surface. 

Cells twine, gather, solidify and _reach_. You stand. 

A burst of nourishment from your left. 

( _Breath_ , something supplies helpfully. _Carbon dioxide._ ) 

"Yes. This will work." 

( _Sound._ ) 

"Do you understand me?" 

You don't respond. 

* * *

The stand's consciousness does so slowly, but it melds into the collective; Foo Fighters knows many things. 

Awareness first. Of life, of dimension, movement, memory, the idea of a world outside. 

Phytoplankton don't communicate, not really. Unconscious signals of _here, the water is warm and nutritious; here, the sun is bright,_ the natural urge to propagate and expand requires no thought and no language. 

This is a thought. This is a memory of that thought. 

This is _knowledge._

This is a nod, this is a shake, a twitch, a flex; the tandem of bone and ligament and muscle fibers exerting force on the world, _changing_ it. This is a rock that you have picked from the ground and dropped. This is your hand, your fingers closing over its rough surface again. This is control. 

"Do you understand me?" 

Your throat works. Sound emerges. This is language. 

"Yes." 

People don't come here often, but Foo Fighters has vague not-memories, impressions of movement ingrained deep in every corded bundle of nerves. You have plenty of time to explore the recesses of its consciousness, absorbing its logic, its strategy, its potential. There is nothing so human as the ability to change and adapt, nothing so alive as evolution. 

You remember the man who had greeted you at your awakening, and again when you learned to speak. 

This is gratitude. 

This is a directive. 

And this is your will, merging with his. 

* * *

You didn't think there were humans like this. You didn't feel confined until you knew that there was a world outside. It's as if you were in a deep, dark hole, but someone took you by the hand and lifted you to the sun that blinded you and hurt you but once you closed your eyes it warmed your skin. 

This is nothing like photosynthesis. 

You want to know more. This is 'curiosity', and with it comes 'freedom'. 

* * *

_My name is Etro._

Oh, you think. This is 'identity'. These are the remnants of someone who _was_ , someone who moved and breathed and lived. 

Sorry, you think again, but you're Foo Fighters now. 

Etro doesn't protest. Her memories are an open book to you. 

Humans photosynthesize too, though it's all manual. They call it eating and drinking and breathing. It's frustrating, but you suppose there has to be some tradeoff for all these wonderful things that they have. 

The Green Dolphin Street Prison isn't the world-- Etro's memories make that clear-- but there's so _much_ of it, and so many things that you still don't understand. 

* * *

You recognize it now; this is happiness. It comes part and parcel with things like 'friendship' and 'jokes' and 'laughter' and it isn't until you've known it that you can identify the loneliness that you used to feel. 

(It doesn't mean you _like_ getting into this kind of trouble, though. Pain and fear are things you've known from the time you became aware of sensation, except you find it hard to react like a human does. After all, your main body is still algae and Etro's can always be repaired.) 

A phrase always floats to the front of her mind, in those few moments you have to yourself to reflect. Whether it's the last thought before she died or her mind's reaction to input from her senses, you don't know, but it sounds about right. 

_In way over my head_. 

* * *

_Look at me, Jolyne._

You won't see her again. 

_This is my spirit... this is my intellect._

This is you, saying goodbye. 

This is you, secure in the knowledge that you've found something brighter than the sun. 

_I was **alive**._


End file.
